Is it time to rethink love in a casual climate?

If you're serious about finding love, should you stop having casual sex? And do the same rules apply for men and women?

Finding someone to shag these days seems as simple as a swipe on your smartphone's touchscreen. It used to be harder. Though I'm told a generous joint and a psychedelic smile during summers of free love used to work a treat, just as folks looking for sex through the lasery haze of the raving '90s could flag a baggie and bet on sexual healing. At least you don't need drugs to hook a bedfellow on Tinder, though the application is probably just as addictive.

True Love: Can you find it while having casual sex? Photo: Getty Images

But there are those of us who would rather not just fall into bed with whomever we appear to "match". Some of us would rather find someone we could buy a bed with, and matching manchester, and towel sets, and some bookshelves, and a balcony herb garden, and all the other accoutrements of a happily coupled home. That's not to say modern monogamy is a house and land package; rather, I'm trying to underline the difference between a bunch of mattresses we pass through while browsing, and the one big comforter we wind up in when we've found something we'd really like to bunk down in.

A difference that brings us to my question: will rolling through bed after bed after bed help or hinder your chances of selecting just the right one? If you're sick of the tumbling, and want instead to simply stand by someone for the rest of your life, can you get there while flopping about still? Or do you have to give up one for the other?

"I found what you'd call my 'one true love' while casually bonking like nobody's business," says *Abe, who doesn't want to be named for fear it would embarrass his now wife.

"Amy* (who doesn't want to be named for fear of recognition) came into my life at a time when I'd head out on the weekend and wind up at a different house, with a different woman, pretty much every Friday, Saturday [and] sometimes Sunday night.

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"I knew she was the one for me though. I stopped seeing all the other girls. And now . . . we're looking at property, so, yes, definitely, you can find love, and you don't have to give up casual sex."

It's worth noting that Abe kept shagging around until he and Amy "went steady". And that Amy was not in a liberal lovemaking phase when she met Abe.

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"I'd done that whole thing in my 20s and I hit 30 and suddenly it felt like I was becoming less myself every time I went to bed with a bloke I didn't really care for. I didn't use to feel like that. I used to love it. It was empowering in a way, it was fun, and by the time I had a few guys I knew I could count on, I felt like I was winning; the sex would be good, it would be a good stress reliever, I didn't have to take it too seriously, and, yeah, maybe a bit of me was hoping that one of my friends with benefits would want something more. And I probably would have been OK with that, if it happened."

But it didn't. And Amy decided the crowd-pleasing was more distraction than satisfaction. She had decided she wanted a partner, she wanted to focus on that, but she also unearthed something else that made her feel more than slightly uncomfortable.

"I was still using online dating sites to meet people. I just wasn't agreeing to sex straight away, as I had been, when that was all I wanted. Thing was, I hadn't completely severed ties with the couple of guys I was steadily casual with. And the guys I was dating couldn't handle that. I'd thought that if we decided things were going well enough for us to decide we'd see each other exclusively, we'd have that conversation, and all other dalliances would be done away with. Except I kept getting this impression from men that they were comfortable with the idea of me dating around as long as I wasn't sleeping around, but would much prefer it if I was seeing only one guy at a time.

"It didn't seem to be an expectation they thought I'd have of them. It certainly wasn't a standard they seemed to hold themselves to."

Abe admits he was one of those guys, with that kind of view, and they laugh about it.

But I wonder whether the "revolutionary" impact of eased coupling via apps or online sites has also revolutionised long-held double standards about the way men and women should conduct their sex lives. Or, are we expecting women to "re-virginify" themselves when they approach the partnering-off phase?

I haven't found research to confirm or deny the assumption casual sex gets in the way of finding love. If you have, please share. I do know that, ultimately, the ability to form and enjoy loving, sustaining relationships with people requires a healthy dose of self-esteem, and that promiscuity can sometimes reflect an absence of this quality. However, that doesn't mean that the serial shaggers are diddling themselves out of a good deal. Love is blind to circumstance.